Von Murr, in an article in his Journal, on the Art of Wood Engraving, gives a copy from a similar bronze stamp, in Praun’s Museum, with the inscription “GALLIANI,” which he considers as most distinctly proving that the Romans had nearly arrived at the arts of wood engraving and book printing. He adds: “Letters cut on wood they certainly had, and very likely grotesques and figures also, the hint of which their artists might readily obtain from the coloured stuffs which were frequently presented by Indian ambassadors to the emperors.”[I-9] [Footnote I-9: Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 2 Theil, S. 81. By grotesque--“Laubwerk”--ornamental foliage is here meant;--_grot_-esque, bower-work,--not caricatures.] At page 90 of Singer’s “Researches into the History of Playing-Cards” are impressions copied from stamps similar to the preceding; which stamps the author considers as affording “examples of such a near approach to the art of printing as first practised, that it is truly extraordinary there is no remaining evidence of its having been exercised by them;--unless we suppose that they were acquainted with it, and did not choose to adopt it from reasons of state policy.” It is just as extraordinary that the Greek who employed the expansive force of steam in the Ælopile to blow the fire did not invent Newcomen’s engine;--unless, indeed, we suppose that the construction of such an engine was perfectly known at Syracuse, but that the government there did not choose to adopt it from motives of “state policy.” It was not, however, a reason of “state policy” which caused the Roman cavalry to ride without stirrups, or the windows of the palace of Augustus to remain unglazed. The following impressions are also copied from two other brass stamps, preserved in the collection of Roman antiquities in the British Museum. [Illustration: OVIRILLIO] [Illustration: FLSCLADIOU] As the letters in the originals are hollowed or cut into the metal, they would, if impressed on clay or soft wax, appear raised or in relief; and if inked and impressed on paper or on white cloth, they would present the same appearance that they do here--white on a black ground. Not being able to explain the letters on these stamps, further than that the first may be the dative case of a proper name Ovirillius, and indicate that property so marked belonged to such a person, I leave them, as Francis Moore, physician, leaves the hieroglyphic in his Almanack,--“to time and the curious to construe.”